Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

The Book Talk:





The Review:


I've been curious about this author.  She wrote another book I was intrigued by and never got around to reading called Draw the Dark (it just looks dark and creepy and different), but when I saw that she wrote a dystopianish zombie novel, I dropped everything to read it.  In many ways, I was not disappointed.  In some ways, I really was.  So here's what I liked and what I wished had been a little different.

What I Liked:


Ashes is continually surprising all the way through.  It's a fairly long novel, and after a pretty explosive beginning I immediately wondered "Where is this possibly going to go from HERE?".  And it went places.  Bick expertly combines MANY different elements (first love, terminal illness, grief, survival, killing, cannibalism, power, etc. etc. etc.) into one story. And it all works together.  I think a less skilled writer would have been bogged down by how many different elements come together in this story, but fortunately Bick is an excellent storyteller.

I also really really enjoyed the fact that Bick does not shy away from the gore.  There were moments in this story where I was reading it in the break room at work while eating, and I literally had to put it down in order to finish my meal.  Alex comes across some pretty awful stuff, and as someone who reads and watches a lot of horror, I was impressed with how affecting Bick's description of brutality and disgustingnesswere.

Maybe most importantly, I liked Alex.  She's a bad ass female character who develops throughout the story and feels like a real person.  She reminded me a little bit of Katniss -- self-assured and no-nonsense and ready to do what needs to be done to survive.

What I wished had been a little different:


This is a little picky thing, but some of the dialogue really bothered me.  At one point, there's a character who is supposed to be in his late teens (and he's supposed to be kind of a tough army dude) who keeps referring to an eight-year-old girl as "honey".  It just felt odd, and it kept happening and every time it happened it bothered me.  I talk to a lot of teens with younger siblings, and none of them refer to them as "honey".

Secondly, Ashes is really separated into three sections, and each one is VERY different from the one before.  And I actually really liked that about it.  For me, the themes of the book can be separated into three major dominating themes: 1. Survival 2. Relationships 3. Reorganization of Society.  HOWEVER, I believe this was a missed opportunity.  This was a PERFECT chance for an author to write a (gasp) SERIES.  A series you say?  Not a trilogy?  But trilogies are so in right now!  But...if you have one book that really could easily be separated into three separate books with distinct story lines, and you're planning three books...couldn't you just write nine shorter books and have them be distinct stories that work together for a whole?  I miss reading a series of books!  When I was a teen, I was totally into reading book after book starring a character I loved and a compelling plot.  I think it's time to bring this back, especially when it could serve the scope of the story as well as it could in Ashes.  If Bick had an opportunity to spend an ENTIRE book on each of her themes, I think she could have gone even further than she had in exploring each individual part of the plot, and I would have liked it even more.

Related to the previous point, I think this would have solved the problem of the ending.  The ending of this book is a problem.  It's a problem in that it's not an ending.  Spoiler alert (not really, because I'm not giving away what exactly happens, but if you want to be completely surprised you probably want to stop reading now): this book freaking ends in the middle of a SCENE.  In the middle of possibly the most interesting and exciting scene in the entire book.  WHY???  Now I have to wait a year to find out what happens at the end of the scene?  Really?  It really felt like the publisher said "OK...well...this book is kinda three books already, so let's stop it here because if we don't it'll just keep going forever."  It just bugged me.  It might be a good way to sell books, but it's not a good way to keep a reader's trust.

So basically, this book has a lot to love.  But it's not perfect.  But I think teens will gobble it up and await the next book anxiously (how could they not?  WHAT HAPPENS NEXT??).

Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

The Book Talk:





The Review:


First of all, I apologize for the long break between my last post and this one!  I went on multiple vacations in August and basically haven't had a free day since the last time I blogged.  Hopefully from now on I'll be back to my usual once-a-week posting schedule, and hopefully all of your Augusts were as awesome as mine.  Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

So, Anya's Ghost.  I've been awaiting this one for awhile actually -- it's been out for a long time, but my library system JUST got it in, and I read it as soon as my hold showed up.  I had read good things about it, and this is JUST my type of graphic novel (I.  Love.  Ghost stories.).  In many ways, this is a very classic ghost story.  Girl falls down well (The Ring), meets ghost.  Ghost and girl become friends (Caspar?).  Ghost is more sinister than previously thought, and gets scaaary.

For me, though, what makes a scary story good is when it has more substance than just being scary.  I think Vera Brosgol did this very well.  Before the ghost even shows up, she sets up her main character to have some problems.  Anya won't accept her Russian heritage and isn't very respectful to her family, she doesn't think very highly of herself, and of course she likes the unattainable guy who is supposed to be kind of a douchebag.  What Vera does a great job of is tying Anya's personal problems into the ghost story.  In fact, at its core, this isn't really a ghost story at all.  It's a story about a teenager coming to terms with who she is, and realizing that maybe her real self isn't so bad after all.

But the spooky parts are really well done.  A lot of this is a credit to the art -- the images of Emily the ghost slowly becoming unhinged are SPOT ON.  A girl who at first seems innocent and innocuous very gradually and slowly becomes more and more creepy and menacing, and Brosgol definitely takes advantage of the medium she chose to tell her story in.

Really the only complaint I have with this book is that I felt like the whole thing was a little rushed.  I wanted it to go on longer, I wanted Anya to go just a little deeper into her own psyche, and I wanted the scary parts to be more well paced.  This is a short book (you could probably read it in one sitting in an hour or so), and I really wanted it to take me longer to read!  I will definitely recommend this to kids who come in and tell me they loved Raina Telgemeier's Smile (after making sure they're OK with a little bit of scary added in, of course), and Neil Gaiman's Coraline.  Probably best for middle school and up, just because it is about a high schooler and there's some smoking and partying and general teenage debauchery.  I hope Vera Brosgol writes another graphic novel soon!

The first post: Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

Art by Gray Foy

The Book Talk:







The Book Review:



This is the very first Bibliosnack entry, so I decided to discuss a book that is very near and dear to my heart.  In general, I'm going to try to review books as I read them (so there'll be a lot more contemporary stuff, or at least books that are new to me), but to christen this blog, I am going with my favorite.

Ray Bradbury is well known for his books Fahrenheit 451, and The Martian Chronicles, and his science fiction short stories.  Something Wicked This Way Comes is probably one of his more minor works according to most people, but it is a book I truly truly love.

The reason I love this book probably stems from the fact that my mom read it out loud to me when I was about ten-years-old.  I vividly remember the language rolling past my ears bizarrely -- I can't say I understood the story as much then as I understood the feeling of the words.  They felt disturbing and creepy and lovely and dark, and full of nostalgia and beautiful fear.  It was a feeling I just got.  When I read the book again later on my own, I found myself HAVING to just read it out loud.  Something Wicked is more poetry than prose, more mood piece than page turner, and in my opinion it's nearly perfect.

When I was a kid, Halloween was more than just a holiday -- it was a passion.  I loved the feeling in the air, and the dressing up, and the pumpkins, and the spookiness.  This book captures in an absolutely spot-on way what it feels like to be a 12-year-old on Halloween.  What it feels like to have the insatiable desire to both be older, and to stay the same age forever.  What it feels like to have a best friend you feel both completely connected to and disconnected from at the same time.

Now that I'm an adult, Something Wicked has even more meaning for me.  What I didn't get as a kid has come to life for me -- I understand Will's father's desire to be young forever, I understand the magic of a library, I understand how it feels to truly disconnect from a friend, and I understand more of what the words really mean.  Even more, it still reminds me of what it was like to be a kid.  And it still scares me.  Few things are more terrifying than the October People and the Illustrated Man, the hall of mirrors and the backwards-turning carousel.

The combination of the subject matter and the metaphor-dripping language is what makes this Bradbury book so amazing for me.  A good book tells a good story, but a great book both tells that story, and makes you feel it.  Something Wicked This Way Comes is my favorite book for this very reason.